The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[StobieWan]

Yes. I've heard nightmarish stories of endless changes of requirements after orders have been placed, increasing costs & delaying delivery. High turnover of staff in procurement seems to be one factor encouraging it. New arrivals sometimes seem t feel a need to make a mark, & smoothly facilitating prompt delivery of what your predecessor ordered doesn't do that.

Fingers crossed that this works. Get it in service & see how it works, then think about tweaking in refits, if needed.

But consider this: the TOBA with BAE was supposed to stop some of the MoD/RN silliness, such as buying holidays which led to atrophy of shipbuilding skills. If they had to pay BAE even if they didn't order ships, surely the MoD & RN would place enough orders for frigates & the like to keep everything ticking over, wouldn't they? Ah well, at least we got some improved (if not urgently needed) OPVs out of it.

Realistically, we need a bipartisan steering committee to over see shipping construction to make sure that whatever strategy is pursued will persist beyond governments. Many of the decisions such as where ships are constructed and of what type are issues that both parties would be able to concur on at least broadly.

I can see why the TOBA was conceived, but it failed as mentioned, because the people in charge of making sure that things got ordered never did.

I mean, I like the batch 2's but really, having Type 26 in the water a year or two earlier would have been more sensible.

Type 31/32 will be a different kettle of fish I suspect but yeah, order them, build them, we'll see.

If we end up with another 3-5 useful GP variants, preferably with a more warlike specification, that'd be great - the manning crisis appears to have eased a bit now and in the future, things may look better in terms of finding crews for them.

Anything that reverses what's looked like an inevitable spiral downwards of hull numbers matched against the same taskings as always has to be welcomed,

 

[Systems Adict]

Yes. I've heard nightmarish stories of endless changes of requirements after orders have been placed, increasing costs & delaying delivery. High turnover of staff in procurement seems to be one factor encouraging it. New arrivals sometimes seem to feel a need to make a mark, & smoothly facilitating prompt delivery of what your predecessor ordered doesn't do that.

Fingers crossed that this works. Get it in service & see how it works, then think about tweaking in refits, if needed.

Having worked across the UK shipbuilding Industry for the last 25 yrs, the biggest issues on build programmes have always revolved around the customer 'making changes'.

No one should ignore how critically this affected the carriers when UK Govt PLC went from EMALS to traditional 'ski-jump' arrgts & too many fingers were pointed at 'the Alliance', rather than the bean counters / the ones controlling the purse strings in Whitehall.

Like many within the industry, I am also keen to see how T31 is gonna play out. Babcock may well have a 'no changes' clause, but they may well be using this to play both ends against the middle.

IF the RN 'WANT' a change, then they will have to wait until after official handover from the shipbuilder. The probability of this is that Babcock will effectively be in the driving seat, as they'll know the equipment / hull outfit / layout, etc, better than anyone else, so will likely be in prime position to quote for the work, or at least, be brought in as the Design consultants for any other 3rd party who takes on the work, so may be able to make money out of it, either way.

It is also a probability that the RN is already 'asking questions' about the feasibility of updates that maybe getting instigated across the fleet, or as part of the recent funding surge, are liable to be brought in & need integrated into the ships. In addition any major equipment supplier worth their salt, has over the last 15 years has continued 'developing' equipment, so the equipment can do more / do other things / be added to. This approach means that some of the suppliers are likely to come forward with 'changes', which again can only be incorporated into the ship design, post handover, for additional cost.

T31 may be declared to be a 'smarter way' to procure ships, but only the public records for UK PLC will hold the true price of how much T31 will actually cost, once these 'cloned' shells of a ship hit service & get their upgrades...

SA

 

[swerve]

"No one should ignore how critically this affected the carriers when UK Govt PLC went from EMALS to traditional 'ski-jump' "
Actually, the UK government went from ski-jump to EMALS then back again when they got the costings - starting with the USA charging a lot more per EMALS & arresting gear set than budgeted for, IIRC. New defence minister (Liam Fox) ordered the change without asking (or listening to anyone who tried to tell him) what "adaptable" actually meant in practice by then.

 

[Systems Adict]

"No one should ignore how critically this affected the carriers when UK Govt PLC went from EMALS to traditional 'ski-jump' "
Actually, the UK government went from ski-jump to EMALS then back again when they got the costings - starting with the USA charging a lot more per EMALS & arresting gear set than budgeted for, IIRC. New defence minister (Liam Fox) ordered the change without asking (or listening to anyone who tried to tell him) what "adaptable" actually meant in practice by then.

Thanks for the correction - it was 13 - 15 yrs ago ( ?? ) & I am an old man with a bad memory !

 

[Systems Adict]

...& just caught this news about Type 32 on one of the media feeds I read...

Royal Navy's New Type 32 Frigate to Serve as Unmanned Systems Mothership - Naval News

 

[John Fedup]

Having worked across the UK shipbuilding Industry for the last 25 yrs, the biggest issues on build programmes have always revolved around the customer 'making changes'.

No one should ignore how critically this affected the carriers when UK Govt PLC went from EMALS to traditional 'ski-jump' arrgts & too many fingers were pointed at 'the Alliance', rather than the bean counters / the ones controlling the purse strings in Whitehall.

Like many within the industry, I am also keen to see how T31 is gonna play out. Babcock may well have a 'no changes' clause, but they may well be using this to play both ends against the middle.

IF the RN 'WANT' a change, then they will have to wait until after official handover from the shipbuilder. The probability of this is that Babcock will effectively be in the driving seat, as they'll know the equipment / hull outfit / layout, etc, better than anyone else, so will likely be in prime position to quote for the work, or at least, be brought in as the Design consultants for any other 3rd party who takes on the work, so may be able to make money out of it, either way.

It is also a probability that the RN is already 'asking questions' about the feasibility of updates that maybe getting instigated across the fleet, or as part of the recent funding surge, are liable to be brought in & need integrated into the ships. In addition any major equipment supplier worth their salt, has over the last 15 years has continued 'developing' equipment, so the equipment can do more / do other things / be added to. This approach means that some of the suppliers are likely to come forward with 'changes', which again can only be incorporated into the ship design, post handover, for additional cost.

T31 may be declared to be a 'smarter way' to procure ships, but only the public records for UK PLC will hold the true price of how much T31 will actually cost, once these 'cloned' shells of a ship hit service & get their upgrades...

SA

Not really knowledgeable about this ongoing saga but with Canada, Australia, and the UK on board for 30 plus T-26 ships, I find it bizarre that that UK wouldn’t have considered minimalized T-26 hulls instead of T-31(32) alternatives. Surely the additional volume of basic hardware components for these vessels would have made a T-26 “Lite” viable along with a decent upgrade capability?

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Not really knowledgeable about this ongoing saga but with Canada, Australia, and the UK on board for 30 plus T-26 ships, I find it bizarre that that UK wouldn’t have considered minimalized T-26 hulls instead of T-31(32) alternatives. Surely the additional volume of basic hardware components for these vessels would have made a T-26 “Lite” viable along with a decent upgrade capability?

Steel is cheap, it's the systems onboard that make up the main cost of the vessel. Making the Type 26 hull smaller wouldn't have saved much money. Stripping off the large VLS, ASW equipment, etc is where savings are to be bad. Then you end up with... surprise surprise... something like the Type 31.

 

[ngatimozart]

Steel is cheap, it's the systems onboard that make up the main cost of the vessel. Making the Type 26 hull smaller wouldn't have saved much money. Stripping off the large VLS, ASW equipment, etc is where savings are to be bad. Then you end up with... surprise surprise... something like the Type 31.

Unfortunately you are implying logic there.

 

[StobieWan]

Not really knowledgeable about this ongoing saga but with Canada, Australia, and the UK on board for 30 plus T-26 ships, I find it bizarre that that UK wouldn’t have considered minimalized T-26 hulls instead of T-31(32) alternatives. Surely the additional volume of basic hardware components for these vessels would have made a T-26 “Lite” viable along with a decent upgrade capability?

A lot of the cost of the 26 is tied into the propulsion system and the various quietening efforts - as soon as you bite the bullet and accept a moderately noisy hull with CODAD, the price comes down a fair amount. Then you pull off sensors, countermeasures etc, and the price tumbles.

Originally, the order for Type 26 was for 8 ASW and 5GP, that changed to 8 ASW and 5 Type 31 so there's your answer there I guess.

 

[swerve]

IIRC I read that the T26 hull form is designed for quietness, at the cost of making it inefficient at high speeds, effectively limiting top speed a bit. If that's right, it may not be the best hull form for all destroyers & frigates.

 

[Systems Adict]

Some numbers / dates to crunch thru...

Type 45 Destroyer fleet out of service dates revealed

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Some numbers / dates to crunch thru...

Type 45 Destroyer fleet out of service dates revealed

I doubt they'll come out of service that quickly, unless the 4X project is sped up. They haven't been worked terribly hard for a start, and the PAAMS/Aster system is still very capable. Even if there was a concern about magazine size that could be dealt with by a mid-life upgrade and/or working to get CAAM quad-packed into the Sylver launchers.

 

[swerve]

Given the size & weight of dedicated CAMM launchers a better way of adding capacity might be fitting some of them, to allow all the Sylver launchers to be used for Aster 30.

PAAMS is capable of being upgraded now, & there could be more enhancements in the future. Maybe it could turn into a European AEGIS, constantly improving.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Given the size & weight of dedicated CAMM launchers a better way of adding capacity might be fitting some of them, to allow all the Sylver launchers to be used for Aster 30.

In retrospect that's probably more likely, given that CAMM isn't too difficult to install.

I wouldn't complain if the Type 4Xs were put into service halfway through the next decade, but I doubt there would be a budget for it. Probably better to focus on upgrading the Type 45s.

 

[Systems Adict]

In other news...

Navy's new £3.2bn carrier stranded in Portsmouth for six months after second flood

Not so good news....!

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

In other news...

Navy's new £3.2bn carrier stranded in Portsmouth for six months after second flood

Not so good news....!

No, but this is why we needed two carriers. Accidents do happen - look at the USS Bonhomme Richard. The damage will be repaired and the ship made ready for service. I feel more sorry for the crew, they'll miss out on an interesting exercise next year.

 

[John Fedup]

No, but this is why we needed two carriers. Accidents do happen - look at the USS Bonhomme Richard. The damage will be repaired and the ship made ready for service. I feel more sorry for the crew, they'll miss out on an interesting exercise next year.

Hopefully whatever the C-F is with the PoW fire suppression system will be determined quickly. More importantly, any preliminary issues discovered should be immediately be investigated on the QE. Is this a design issue or vendor screw up?

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

More importantly, any preliminary issues discovered should be immediately be investigated on the QE.

No doubt a check will be made, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. HMS Queen Elizabeth has already had a few leaks investigated repaired. I expect it will be something wasn't quite installed properly, or a specific part happened to fail as parts do.

 

[south]

No doubt a check will be made, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. HMS Queen Elizabeth has already had a few leaks investigated repaired. I expect it will be something wasn't quite installed properly, or a specific part happened to fail as parts do.

Poor PR handling by the RN, given by all accounts the flood occurred sometime in October. They missed the opportunity to manage the release of information, and lose some public transparency points at the same time. If it was an operational ship I could buy it as OpSec, but it is still some way from being operational. Even Save the RN blog calls them on it.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Poor PR handling by the RN, given by all accounts the flood occurred sometime in October.

Given the current bust-up with the EU on a future trade relationship, I doubt anyone cares right now outside the small community interested in defence issues. From the RN's perspective the news couldn't have come out at a better time.